Men's Soccer Closes Out Regular Season at Cross-Town Rival Rocky Wednesday

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BRIEFLY
The MSUB men’s soccer team concludes the regular season with a make-up game from Oct. 11 at Rocky Mountain College Wednesday at 2 p.m. at Wendy’s Field.  The Yellowjackets are looking to end a two-game skid and end the season on a positive note.  MSUB enters with a 10-5-2 record and finished Great Northwest Athletic Conference play with a 3-3-2 mark and currently sit in third place in the league standings.  Rocky enters its final game of the regular season with a 4-9-1 record in its inaugural season.

THEIR FINAL GAME
Six Yellowjackets will be playing their final games on Wednesday at Rocky.  Sam Charles, Zach Yeager, Tom Milroy, Jeremy DeHerrera, Jarred Weisen and Sander Tollefson all were honored Oct. 24 on Senior Day versus Rocky and will end their collegiate careers against the same team.

SCOUTING MONTANA STATE BILLINGS
The Yellowjackets are led by senior forward Sam Charles who leads the team and the league with 21 goals on the year.  Charles broke his own school record for goals in a season as he had 19 each of the past two seasons.  He needs just one goal to tie the Great Northwest Athletic Conference single season record of 22 and two to break it Wednesday.  For his career, Charles has 68 goals, 17 assists and 153 points.  Chris Andre is second on the team in scoring with 15 points on three goals and a team-high nine assists.  He is tied for the league lead in assists.  Jarred Weisen is tied with Jeremy DeHerrera for third in scoring with 12 points.  Weisen has four goals and four assists, while DeHerrera has two goals and is second in assists with eight.  Garion Holian is second in goals on the team with five and fourth in points with 11.

In goal, the Yellowjackets are led by Matt Mitchell who has played in 14 games and started 13.  He has a 1.23 goals against average in 1240:37 minutes of action.  Mitchell has 63 saves and a 7-5-2 record to go along with three shutouts.  Sander Tollefson is 3-0 on the year in six games with three starts.  He has an 0.93 goals against average with 16 saves.

As a team, the Yellowjackets have a league-high 39 goals on the year with a league-best 40 assists and a league-best 118 points.  MSUB has 227 shots with 119 on goal and is shooting .172 on the year and .524 in shots on goal.  MSUB is tied with Seattle Pacific for the fewest goals allowed on the year with 21 and leads the league with 82 saves.

A WIN ON WEDNESDAY WOULD...
Give the Yellowjackets their second-most wins in a season in school history with 11.  MSUB had 13 wins in 2007.
A season sweep of Rocky
Their sixth road win of the season which would be the most in school history in a season

RECAPPING LAST WEEK
The Yellowjackets ended the home portion of the regular season in disappointing fashion with a pair of conference losses to knock them out of the GNAC championship chase.  MSUB dropped a heartbreaking double-overtime loss to conference champion, Saint Martin’s, last Thursday with a goal by Xan Nixon with 27 seconds left in the second overtime, 2-1 and lost 3-2 to Western Washington on Saturday.  All five goals combined versus the Vikings came in the second half.  Both games the Yellowjackets had the lead.  Against the Saints, MSUB broke his own school record with his 20th goal of the season just nine minutes into the game.  Nixon scored in the 24th and 110th minutes to give the Saints the win.  On Saturday, Charles scored the first goal in the game just 54 seconds into the second half after he didn’t play the first half.  WWU scored three straight goals, before MSUB’s Tyler Moriarty cut the deficit to 3-2 late in the game.

SCOUTING ROCKY MOUNTAIN COLLEGE
The Battlin’ Bears enter the game with a 4-9-1 record in their first season of competition.  Leading the way for RMC this year is James Voisey who leads the team with four goals and two assists.  Nick Heffernan is second with three goals and two assists.  In goal, Johan Karlsson leads the team with a 2.6 goals against average with 23 saves.  The Bears tied and won at Jamestown College in their previous two outings.  Prior to that, RMC dropped its previous four games, including a 4-0 decision at MSUB on Oct. 24.  Sam Charles scored a hat trick against the Bears in that contest.

INSIDE THE SERIES...
MSUB is 1-0 all-time versus Rocky as it won 4-0 on Oct. 24 at Yellowjacket Field.

CHARLES AND MILROY EARN ACADEMIC HONORS
For the second consecutive season, both Sam Charles and Tom Milroy have been named to the CoSIDA/ESPN The Magazine First Team Academic All-District VII team.  Charles carries a 3.6 grade point average in health and human performance, while Milroy boasts a 3.87 grade point average in health and human performance, too.

ONE AWAY
Sam Charles broke his own school record for goals in a season last week and is one goal away from tying the Great Northwest Athletic Conference record for goals in a season with 22. 

THREE’S A CHARM FOR CHARLES
For the third time this season, Sam Charles has been named conference Player of the Week.  This time it comes off of a five goal output last week, including a hat trick versus Rocky Oct. 24.  It was Charles’ fourth hat trick of his career and first of the season.  With the three goals on Saturday, he broke the GNAC record for most career hat tricks.

IN THE TOP 5
Senior Sam Charles ranks second nationally in goals per game at a 1.24 average and he is third nationally in points per game at a 2.82 clip.  He trails Se-Eun Park of Washington Adventist in both areas.  Park leads the nation in points per game at a 3.29 average and in goals per game at 1.36.  This is the highest Charles has been ranked all season.

THREE FOR ASSISTS
Senior Sam Charles and junior Chris Andre have eight and nine assists, respectively, on the season which puts them in a three-way tie for the school record in a career.  Former Yellowjacket, Scott Dixon, also has 17 assists.  Andre scored his team-leading ninth assist against Western Washington on Saturday and now is tied for first in the league and is ranked 18th nationally in assists.

NATIONALLY SPEAKING
The Yellowjackets are ranked nationally in a number of areas as MSUB is 30th nationally in scoring offense at a 2.29 clip, 43rd in shutout percentage (0.35) and 45th in save percentage (0.796).  All of those lead the league as well.  Individually, Charles is in the top five in points and goals per game, while Chris Andre and Jeremy DeHerrera are in the top 25 in assists at 18th (0.53) and 26th (0.47), respectively.  Matt Mitchell is 63rd in goals against average (1.23) and 54th in save percentage (0.788).